The Outer Worlds
The Outer Worlds is an action role-playing game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Private Division on October 25, 2019 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with a Nintendo Switch release expected in 2020. Gameplay The Outer Worlds is an action role-playing video game featuring a first-person perspective. In the early stages of the game, the player can create their own character and unlock a ship, which acts as the game's central hub space. Though the player cannot control their ship directly, it serves as a fast travel point to access different areas in the game and acts as the player's persistent inventory space. The player can encounter and recruit non-player characters as companions who have their own personal missions and stories. When accompanying the player, the companions act as an aid in combat. Each companion has its own individual skills and special attacks, and it can also develop its own skill specialization. When exploring, the player can bring up to two companions alongside them, while the rest stay on the ship. The player can make numerous dialogue decisions, which can influence the game's branching story. They can also respond to NPCs in various ways, such as acting heroically, maniacally, or moronically. During combat situations, the player can use various weapon types such as melee and firearms, which have three ammo types: light, heavy and energy. These weapons can be customized to add elemental damage. The player can use stealth or social skills (persuasion, lying and intimidation) to avoid combat altogether. As the player progresses, they gain experience points, which the player and their companions can use to level up and unlock new skills. The player can develop their technical skills, which are further divided into three categories: Science, Medical, and Engineering. For instance, the player can use a shrink ray to shrink down an enemy. The player is able to invest points into these skills, which will unlock new perks that enhance combat efficiency. The player can also enter a "Tactical Time Dilation" state, which slows down time and reveals opponents' health statistics, which grants the player tactical advantages. As the player leads their companions, they improve their companions' combat strength and resilience. The player can also gain a "flaw" that occurs when the player fails repeatedly in certain gameplay segments. Flaws impede the player in some way, but also give additional perks and advantages. Plot The game is set in an alternate future that diverged in 1901, when U.S. President William McKinley is not assassinated by Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition. As a result, Theodore Roosevelt never succeeded him, allowing large business trusts to dominate society well into the future, where megacorporations have begun colonizing and terraforming alien planets, to varying results. Originally bound for the furthest reaches of the galaxy, a colony ship named the Hope's faster-than-light travel goes astray, leaving it abandoned at the edge of colony space. The player character is awakened by a mad scientist named Phineas Welles from cryosleep only to find that most of the passengers are still in hibernation, and begins a journey to the nearby colony of Emerald Vale. The game features several factions and a branching story that reacts to the player's choices. The player crash lands on an Earth-like planet called Terra 2, where after learning the basics of combat, they manage to find a spaceship formerly owned by Captain Alex Hawthorne called 'The Unreliable' before Hawthorne was crushed by the player's escape pod upon landing, making the player the new Captain. The Captain must find a power regulator in order to get the Unreliable working again, so they journey towards the town of Edgewater, which is currently suffering from severe food shortages as well as a plague. After learning from Edgewater's mayor, Reed Tobson, that there is a power regulator located inside a nearby abandoned geothermal power plant, the player goes to search for it. Tobson also gives the Captain their first companion, an awkward engineer named Parvati, to accompany and help the Captain find the power regulator. When the Captain reaches the power plant, they must redirect the power in order to remove it - they can either redirect it to Edgewater in order to force deserters from the town (now living in an abandoned botanical lab) to return, or they can redirect it to the botanical lab to assist the deserters, depending on the player's choices. If the power is stripped from the botanical lab, the player can convince the deserter leader, Adelaide, to try and overthrow Tobson in order to make Edgewater a better place to live. The Captain can also find another companion in Edgewater, a priest named Vicar Max who is devoted to 'The Grand Plan'. After obtaining the power regulator, the Captain and his companions (if the player allows them to travel with them) enter the Unreliable, where the ship's super-intelligent A.I., ADA, deems the player the new Captain and allows them to fly the ship to a nearby ship-turned-docking station called the Groundbreaker, the first colony ship ever sent from Earth, in order to buy a Navkey from a woman named Giles to travel to planets around the Halcyon Colony. While on the Groundbreaker, the Captain, depending on the player's choices, can enlist in bounty hunts, join the SubLight Salvaging Corporation for some extra bits and help the leader of the Groundbreaker, an engineer named Junlei, repair the ship. Furthermore, the Captain can also recruit two new companions; Ellie, a space pirate and medic, who is recruited after the Captain rescues her friend, and Felix, a nervous stowaway looking to prove himself, however the Captain can reject them if the player chooses to. Giles can also employ the Captain to try and find expensive blueprints, plans and devices on another part of Terra 2 called Roseway. The Captain can find three scientists in Roseway, Crane, Vaughn and Shaw, and must complete their quests in order to obtain valuables from them, however whether the Captain keeps them to sell to Giles or returns them is up to the player. Roseway is infested with both violent raptidons as well as a gang of outlaws, however if the Captain finds and spares their leader, Cassandra, the outlaws will be peaceful towards them. Furthermore, in a warehouse in Roseway, the Captain can potentially find an acid steeper which is used to repair an automechanical on their ship called S.A.M. (Sanitation Automechanical). If the Captain repairs S.A.M., it can join them as a companion. The Captain can also travel to a deserted asteroid called Scylla without buying a Navkey, however this asteroid is mainly used for side quests or hunting gorilla-like creatures called primals, and not for the actual story, but is still good to visit. After buying the Navkey from Giles, the Captain can travel to a planet called Monarch, originally called Terra 1, a moon to the planet Olympus. After landing in Stellar Bay on Monarch, the safest and main settlement on Monarch run by a man named Sanjar, the Captain is tasked by Phineas to climb a mountain called Devil's Peak in order to restore communications in a radio tower with an old friend called Hiram. However, due to the wilderness of Monarch being so dangerous, with raptidons, mantidrones and marauders, Phineas tasks the Captain with finding a hunter called Nyoka to help them scale the mountain. The Captain can also help Sanjar and the MSI government to help Stellar Bay be recognised by the Board, as well as the rival Iconoclast group led by Graham and Zora in Amber Heights. Furthermore, the Captain can help one of SubLight's leaders, Catherine, at a settlement called Fallbrook, or they can clear the abandoned bottling plant of Cascadia of marauders and raptidons. After meeting and teaming up with Nyoka, another companion, the group set out to climb the mountain, either straight up or through the safer cave systems below. Once they reach the tower, they can reactivate the transmissions, allowing Phineas to discover the location of the chemicals that he needs to revive the other passengers from hibernation on the Hope, while causing Sanjar and Graham to intercept the communications and fight with each other over a valuable superweapon inside a recently crashed ship, which the Captain can collect and deliver to either MSI or the Iconoclasts. Phineas discovers that the chemicals are in the ownership of Minister Clarke, one of Chairman Rockwell's key advisors in the wealthy city of Byzantium back on Terra 2. However, when the Captain confronts him, Clarke explains he doesn't have the chemicals, but they are inside an underground lab in Rockwell's company building, while Rockwell has placed Clarke under house arrest. Inside the lab, the Captain learns that Rockwell has been trying to copy Phineas' revival process and is almost there, as Rockwell plans to place all useless and redundant citizens of the Halcyon Colony into hibernation while the intelligent and wealthy survive and prevail due to the ongoing food crisis. The Captain also learns that Phineas used to be a scientist working on the Hope, and tried to revive twelve passengers, which all proved fatal. The Captain eventually finds the chemicals, and can either take all or some of them before leaving Byzantium to return to Phineas' lab. However, the Captain receives transmissions from Phineas, whose lab is being about to be attacked by the Board, as well as Rockwell's key advisor, Sophia, who asks the Captain to meet her in Byzantium and give Phineas up to her. The Captain can either try and help Phineas, or go to Sophia and give him up. If the Captain meets up with Sophia, she will ask them to kill everyone in the poorer regions of Halcyon such as Edgewater, in which the player can accept or refuse this offer. If they refuse, Sophia will order them killed, and the Captain will be targeted by every corporate trooper in Byzantium. If they accept, the Captain will eventually join forces with the Board, which in most cases is the bad ending. If the Captain chooses to help Phineas, they will find his lab ransacked and Phineas is gone; it is revealed that he has been captured by the Board and imprisoned in a maximum-security prison called the Labyrinth on the planet Tartarus, known for its severe lightning storms and volcanic behaviour. The Captain and their crew fly to Tartarus to infiltrate the prison, and can receive aid from Junlei, Sanjar and Zora if the Captain has helped them in previous side quests. Once the Captain reaches the top of the prison, they will find Chairman Rockwell, who is keeping Phineas hostage in an electric chair to try and gain the revival process from him. The Captain then kills Rockwell and rescues Phineas, who states that now with Rockwell and many of his advisors dead, the Board will most likely collapse. Furthermore, he explains that Earth has gone dark and no communications have been received from them for two years, which means the Halcyon Colony is now isolated with no governmental systems to run it. Phineas then tells the Captain that he plans to revive the most intelligent and skilled passengers on the Hope to help fix Halcyon before reviving the rest of them. He then asks if the Captain wants to be the new leader of the Halcyon Colony, in which they can accept and refuse, in which accepting it leads to the good ending. All of the Captain's companions (except S.A.M.) have their own optional missions that the player can partake in if they want to, in which doing so unlocks a new perk for that companion while revealing some story behind each of them. Parvati's mission involves getting her ready for her first date with Junlei, who Parvati falls in love with on the Groundbreaker after Junlei writes her a poem. The Captain must find different food around the colony for the pair to eat as well as bath supplies and fancy clothes for Parvati to wear on her date. If all of these are completed, Parvati and Junlei have their date and Parvati later tells the Captain that it went great and that they are now a couple. Vicar Max's mission involves travelling across Halcyon in search of the 'Grand Plan', which Vicar Max believes will give him salvation and enlightenment. The Captain also learns that Vicar Max was once in prison due to his obsession with a book describing the plan. In the end, Vicar Max finds out that the 'Grand Plan' doesn't exist and that he was just trying to enlighten himself, giving him inner peace. Ellie's mission involves travelling to her family's estate in Byzantium in order to visit her parents. However, she finds that her parents had spread a rumour that she was dead in order to collect her life insurance money. Furious, Ellie tells the Captain to transfer or steal the money onto a fake account in order to ruin her parents for her. Felix's mission involves finding his old friend, Hortace, in an outlaw base on Scylla run by him. Hortace asks the Captain and Felix to kill his partner, Rufus, who he calls a traitor. However, Rufus states that Hortace works for the Board, much to Felix's shock and anger as Hortace said that he hated the Board. When Felix confronts him, Hortace shows his true colours and tries to silence the pair. After killing Hortace and his gang, Felix tells the Captain that he doesn't know what or who to believe in anymore, but appreciates the help. Finally, Nyoka's mission involves collecting the medallions of her former friends and fellow hunters who were all members of the 'Claron' group before all of them but Nyoka were killed while hunting. After collecting all the medallions, the Captain and Nyoka enter the cave that Claron used as a base, now swarming with mantidrones and mantiqueens, which the Captain must lure out using parts of other creatures. Nyoka buries the remains of her friends and thanks the Captain for their help, and that she is glad to be a member of their crew. In the good ending, each companion also receives their own endings, depending on the player's choices throughout the game. Ellie's good ending shows that she has bought her own ship and recruited her own crew for bounty hunts and cargo transport. Felix's good ending shows that he has decided to travel around Halcyon and help those in need, while lending a hand wherever he can. Nyoka's good ending shows that she has returned to Monarch and has become a hunting instructor for survivalists and hunting enthusiasts, educating them with her tactics and knowledge. Parvati's good ending shows that she is now working as one of the top engineers on the Groundbreaker while being known across Halcyon, while also still in a happy relationship with Junlei. Vicar Max's good ending shows that he is now preaching and offering help and guidance across Halcyon, only using a gun to defend the defenceless. Finally, S.A.M.'s good ending shows that his use on the Unreliable caused the manufacture and sales of S.A.M. units in Halcyon to increase massively. 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